


slow roads

by rainingover



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Getting to Know Each Other, Introspection, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Summer, almost strangers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-29 18:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19836529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingover/pseuds/rainingover
Summary: Yuta quits his job in a blaze of glory on Tuesday morning.By Wednesday he's on the road with Sicheng, who Yuta hardly remembers from high-school and seems to have his own problems, and they're driving towards the coast in his beat-up old car on an impromptu road trip.





	slow roads

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to prompter of N-151! i have really enjoyed writing this and i hope it's the sort of thing you were looking for ♥
> 
> thank you also to the people who listened to me panic over getting this done!

As Yuta drives away from the office building he should be sitting in for at least the next six hours, his suit uncomfortably stiff and his tie practically suffocating him, the enormity of what he’s actually just gone and done begins to hit him like a slow-motion punch to the gut. 

The shocked look that had appeared on his manager's face is seared into his mind, and the impressed looks that had lit up on his co-workers’ faces are there too - a better memory to keep, he thinks. They'd been proud of him, if a little bemused. A few had even _applauded_ him as he'd stormed out of the office and jabbed at the button for the elevator, head held high, heart beating out of his chest. It had been a rush, a high of adrenaline and relief, and one bold “ _fuck you”_. 

Except now, as he takes the turn off towards home, loosening his tie with one hand as he steers the car with his other, Yuta is starting to think that maybe, just maybe, quitting his job so dramatically in the middle of a Tuesday might not have been his best ever idea.

Still, his manager _is_ a money-driven condescending asshole - something that Yuta had pointed out loudly in front of the entire office fifteen minutes earlier. Yuta will stand by that opinion, and, even though technically he needs money to live, he also wants to retain his self respect. So, really, he couldn't have worked for that man for even a second longer.

"Fuck the system," Yuta mutters to himself, and when he gets back to his apartment - eerily quiet, unused to him being there in the middle of a weekday - he strips out of his suit, flinging the tie halfway across the living room where it disappears behind the sofa, and throws himself down on his bed. 

And then, he sleeps.

He wakes up disoriented, light streaming in through his windows as the sun sits low in the sky. It’s a little before six thirty; he’s slept through the whole afternoon. Wild.

When his stomach rumbles, Yuta remembers that he hasn’t eaten since breakfast and for a moment he mourns his lunch, which is still packed into his cute pink and red Hello Kitty lunchbox (he liked to use it at work to fuck with his co-workers limited views on gender stereotypes) and which he realises, belatedly, is still sitting in the office fridge, left behind after his great exodus. 

Maybe he should have waited until _after_ he’d taken his lunch to quit his job.

There’s nothing he can do about it now (except to ask Taeil to pick his lunch-box up for him tomorrow), so Yuta throws on jeans and a sweater and toes his feet into the half-laced sneakers beside his bed and heads out to find somewhere that's open to eat.

He settles on ordering a warm focaccia sandwich and a double-shot cappuccino from a little corner cafe he hasn't even been inside before. It’s one that he’s walked past it countless times and it feels nice to have finally stepped foot inside; he’s all about helping out the local community, and especially now that he’s openly renounced soulless corporations like the one he worked for until a few hours ago, it only seems fair to bypass Starbucks. He sits in the window and eats his sandwich, watching people walk past outside. Everyone looks so hurried, so focused on getting home. Yuta doesn't envy them. 

Still, at least they have a paycheque coming in at the end of the month.

It's quiet inside the cafe, but that doesn't stop someone from pulling up a stool next to him. Yuta spots a flash of black hair, but he doesn't turn to look - he isn't a creep and he doesn't want to freak someone out by catching their eye, even if instinct tells him to check them out. Some people just want to eat focaccia and watch people walk by outside and Yuta respects that. He wants that too.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” The person asks him, and Yuta recognises something in their voice: it’s deeper than average but full-toned, and he’s sure he’s heard it somewhere before. When Yuta looks over, he realises that he recognises their face as well as their voice.

"Oh, hey." Yuta wracks his brain, desperately trying to align the face in front of him with a name. He's always been bad with names. "I think... Do I know you from somewhere?”

The guy nods. He's wearing expensive jewellery with a battered old camel coloured jacket, the sort of juxtaposition that only beautiful people can pull off. _He_ can pull it off. "Sicheng Dong. We went to high-school together."

"Of course." Yuta smiles, the picture falling into place in his mind. Yuta doesn't remember him being this attractive in high-school, but then back then Yuta wasn't so much into a handsome face as he was into anyone who wanted to suck his dick. He _was_ a teenager after all. "I'm Yuta, uh, Yuta Nakamoto."

“I remember you. You were soccer captain before you graduated, weren't you?” Sicheng asks, a high-school achievement which had once seemed so important and now seems so redundant, hanging awkwardly between them. Yuta had enjoyed high-school, but while it was fun he wouldn't want to relive it. He's always been the kind of person who is looking ahead, or he had been until he'd started to wake up each morning feeling trapped in a sort of purgatory dressed up as employment in a soul-sucking corporation. Still, now that’s behind him too, for better or for worse.

"Yeah.” Yuta nods. “Did you play? I don't think we were in the same classes."

“No, I graduated a couple of years after you." Sicheng breaks the corner off his sandwich. "What do you do now?”

“I work for an importing company. Or, I did. Technically I’m unemployed." Yuta grimaces. "I quit my job today.” 

Sicheng looks quite impressed, or maybe this is his judging face, Yuta can’t tell. He sips from his water bottle and says, “Did you go out with finesse?”

Yuta can't help but smile; he's still a little giddy from the high of it. “Yes, actually. I called my manager Corporate Scum and tried to take a plant home with me to save it, but it turned out it was plastic so I left it.”

Sicheng laughs, not unkindly. Says, "Cool."

Yuta isn't sure about that. He's unemployed now, that doesn't feel cool. "What about you?”

“Am I corporate scum?” Sicheng raises an eyebrow. His eyebrows look expensive, too, Yuta thinks. Or maybe he just has money-troubles on his mind.

“I mean what have you been doing since school?”

“Studying. I'm a business management major,” he says with a small smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

“Ah, so you’re corporate scum in _training._ ” Yuta smiles back, but Sicheng's own smile fades quickly.

“I’m joking."

"It's okay." Sicheng takes a bite of his sandwich. He looks out of the window.

“Sorry, I honestly didn’t mean anything by that, I thought––” he pauses. "I was just teasing you."

“I know." Sicheng looks at him. "What are you going to do now that you quit your job?" He's intense, but he's soft around the edges - Yuta can tell. He couldn't be corporate scum, Yuta thinks, or at least he wouldn't _want_ to be. Intention and result can be very different things in this world.

"I have no idea," Yuta admits. "I haven't thought about it. I just drove home and then… Then I was hungry."

"I see,” Sicheng says. He finishes his sandwich in silence, wipes his fingers on a napkin and finishes his drink, staring out of the window. “Want to get out of here?”

At first Yuta can’t even tell that Sicheng is talking to him. Says, “What?”

“Do you want to get out of here?”

“Out of this cafe?” Yuta can't seem to keep up with this conversation (or is it an interview? It kind of feels that way) but then his brain might still might be in his Hello Kitty lunchbox back in the fridge, along with his lunch. "Sorry, I'm lost."

“Out of this town." Sicheng clears his tray. He takes the empty coffee cup off Yuta's tray too, and bundles it all into the trashcan near the door. "I need to get out of this town for a while. Maybe it's the same for you. But my car is in the garage. Do you have a car?”

“Technically? Yes I do, but…” Yuta thinks about the rattling noise that the engine makes on start up. He thinks about the broken air-con and the way that the back windows get stuck if you try to open them and the dodgy radio. He thinks about the old paint-job. He loves that car, but she's barely a car at all.

"But..?” 

“But nothing,” Yuta decides. He’s already been reckless once today, why not continue? “I have a car. Why, where are we going?"

Sicheng says, "Anywhere, away from here. The coast, maybe. Are you going to come?" His eyes widen in the way that puppies eyes do when they want something. The way that's been ingrained into them through hundreds of years of evolution into the domesticated pets they are today. He wants Yuta to say yes, and Yuta can't really think of a good reason not to. 

_Except_ — 

"Wait. How do I know you aren't going to, like, kill me?" he asks. Sicheng looks unnecessarily offended considering he barely knows him. He hasn't seen him in years.

"I'm not an axe murderer. I'm just feeling spontaneous, kind of like you when you quit your job. We seem to be in a similar kind of situation and I thought..." He puffs out his cheeks. "It was a stupid suggestion, I'm sorry."

"No, it's... Yes. Let's do it!” Yuta takes a breath. "I like road trips."

Sicheng smiles. His teeth are perfect; of course they are. He puts his hand on the door to leave. Says, "Here, let me put my number into your phone. I'll meet you here at nine tomorrow morning."

"And then what?"

"Then we'll drive, I guess." Sicheng smiles at him. He has a nice smile; pretty as it grows like the slow bloom of a flower. Yuta likes flowers. "Don't be late."

Yuta wonders if Sicheng will even be there when he pulls up outside the cafe the next morning, but he is - sunglasses poised on the end of his nose, his camel coloured jacket sleeves rolled up over his forearms. Yuta wonders what his story is. 

“I told my friend I’d bumped into you,” Sicheng tells him as he buckles up. “I think you’d remember him from our school.”

Yuta can barely remember Sicheng and Sicheng is one of the most beautiful people he’s ever laid eyes on, so he isn’t convinced he would remember, but he says “I would? What’s his name?”

“Jaehyun Jung,” Sicheng says. “He took over the soccer captaincy after you.”

The name brings up an image of tousled black hair and a handsome face that Yuta remembers being slightly jealous of for a while before he got over himself and was just proud to have someone so on his wavelength on the soccer team. “I remember him. Does he still have those insane dimples that made everyone at school go crazy?”

“Yeah, he does.” He rolls his eyes. People must mention those dimples all the time.

This is a _great_ distraction from being jobless, Yuta decides. Last night, after he’d got back home and their whole meeting had seemed a little like a strange daydream fuelled by adrenaline and coffee, Yuta had wondered if taking this trip wasn’t a ridiculous idea. It had felt like running away from his troubles, and he’d gone to sleep adamant he’d text Sicheng and cancel the next morning. But then he’d woken up to birdsong and blue sky, and had thought that maybe, just _maybe_ , a little trip out of town would be a perfect excuse to get his head together after slam-dunking his consistent paycheque into the trash in a blaze of glory. 

Sicheng stretches his legs out in front of him. “You can push the seat back so you have more space,” Yuta tells him. “It’s just the handle on… Yeah, that one. And you can roll the window down too,” Yuta says. “My air-con is bust. And my radio is difficult to tune. Sorry.”

Sicheng laughs and rolls down the window. “You really love this car, don’t you? I can tell.”

“I do, yeah,” Yuta admits. “I don’t see the point of those fancy convertibles with parking sensors and blue-tooth command, but no, like, cup-holders. It's not practical!”

“You’re describing my car in perfect detail.” Sicheng watches him glinting against the sun with an amused smile. Yuta can see it in the rear-view mirror on and off and it’s making him feel self conscious and kind of warm inside. “It basically drives itself, but I can’t even put my coffee cup down. The air-con does work though.”

Yuta laughs. “I’m glad we’re doing this,” he says. “It was a good idea.”

“A good idea…” Sicheng has his sunglasses pushed up onto the top of his head now and his hair falls around the frames cutely. “Like quitting your job was a good idea yesterday?”

"Yes. And I don’t regret either yet.”

Sicheng ponders this. He fidgets in his seat. He’s so lean, it’s distracting. “Do you think you will?”

Yuta shakes his head. “Why,” he asks, “Do you think I will?”

“I hope you don’t.” Sicheng doesn’t look at him, just leans over to turns up the radio. As he does, he sunglasses fall back down over his eyes, and he keeps them on as they drive onto the highway. 

“You know, when I was driving to work yesterday morning, I did not envision I’d be doing this today,” Yuta tells sicheng when he gets back from paying at the gas station that they pull up at a few hours later. “Not one bit.” 

“Well I didn’t envision it either. I envisioned another day just like the rest of summer. The same stilted conversations with the same people at home, around the same pool…” He pulls a face, scrunched up with a pain that Yuta can’t understand. “That’s why I had to get out of there, finally.”

“You have a pool at home?”

Sicheng narrows his eyes. “That isn’t the part of that sentence you’re meant to focus on.”

Yuta says, “Sorry.” And he means it, he does, it’s just– what Sicheng is describing sounds _nice_. “A pool does sound good right now, though. This car’s too hot.”

Sicheng laughs. “How long has the air conditioning in this car actually been broken?”

“Since about a week after I bought it,” Yuta admits, laughs at himself along with Sicheng. It feels good to laugh and it’s only now that Yuta realises how little he’s actually laughed like this recently. 

By the time they stop again, the sun is low and the sky is a dark orange. They sit in a roadside cafe sipping coffee that tastes both burnt and too weak at the same time, and watch as the street-lights outside turn on one by one. 

“So… What’s the plan for tonight?” Yuta asks. It seems the inevitable question as sunset slides into view outside the window.

“Tonight?”

“Like, where do we sleep?” Yuta explains. “Not the car, surely?”

“Not the car. I don’t think that’s safe.” Sicheng looks concerned at the thought of it. Yuta guesses his family’s usual vacations are a lot more upmarket than a beat-up car with a bag of creased clothes in the trunk if the look on his face is anything to go by.

“I guess not.” Yuta agrees with him. “Also, my back wouldn’t like it." He rolls his neck around his shoulders.

Sicheng says, “You know, you sound really old right now.”

“I feel it. How long is it since we finished high-school?” He counts on his fingers. “Five years for me. That’s disgusting.”

“It’s called the passing of time. It happens, unfortunately.” Sicheng takes tiny sips of his drink, grimacing slightly after every one. Yuta guesses he doesn’t like the drink, but isn’t saying so. “Can’t we just stay in a hotel?”

It seems pretty forward, but then, Sicheng did basically proposition this whole trip less than twenty four hours ago. Yuta is both confused and impressed and feels out of his depth at the same time, like he's being asked out by a prince or something. 

Maybe he was the popular one in high-school, but right now he’s just an ex-slave to the corporate world with a second hand car and Sicheng has a Fendi wallet that looks brand new, and he's wearing Balenciaga sneakers and a face crafted by sadistic angels, and he’s suggesting they _get a hotel room._

“You mean, like, together?”

Sicheng just looks at him as if he’s a complete moron. “We can have separate rooms.”

 _Right._ Right, of course.

Sicheng pushes the drink towards Yuta. “Want to swap? This is disgusting.”

“Well, if it’s _that_ tasty I’d love to.” Yuta says, but he swaps the drinks regardless. Sicheng paid for them after all, he can’t exactly refuse. “I’m wracking up quite a debt with you on this trip, aren’t I?”

“I don't mind. It was me that suggested this. It’s just… I feel like I haven’t really taken the time to just _breathe_ since Summer began. Summer break, they call it. More like Summer breaks _me_.” There’s humour in his eyes as he says it, like he’s quite proud of his wordplay, and Yuta can’t help but smile.

“You know, for the first time in a year I woke up this morning and didn’t feel suffocated, and I hadn’t even realised I was feeling it before. It just felt like… Like that was just life now.” Yuta likes this whole honesty thing. It's refreshing, freeing. Admitting he isn't in his dream job, his dream life. It feels good.

“To breathing,” Sicheng announces with a lopsided smile, and holds up his coffee-cup. 

“To breathing,” Yuta cheers back. Sicheng's drink is pretty gross, but Yuta sips it anyway.

The hotel they find to stay in is just off the high-way. The bar is surprisingly busy, despite its location, and they sit at the bar and order one beer each, just for something to do. 

“Should we drive right down to the coast tomorrow? I want to see the ocean.” Sicheng flips the beer-mats on the bar over one by one. “It might clear our heads. That’s what we need.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Yuta bites his lip. He flips over a beer-mat too. “I actually really love the ocean. I love the outdoors a lot.”

“Me too.” Sicheng gets off his bar-stool, leaves the beer-mats wrong-side up. Yuta feels wrong-side up right now, but it isn’t a bad feeling. “I hope you sleep well,” he says, and he really seems to mean it.

Yuta watches him leave the bar and walk across the lobby towards the elevators to go up to his room. He gets out his phone and checks his messages properly for the first time since the day before. He has a voicemail from Taeil who works on the floor above his office. 

“You’re a legend!” Taeil says excitedly into the phone. This is the most energetic Yuta has heard Taeil sound in _forever_. “I can’t believe I was out of the office yesterday, but security let me watch your display on the CCTV today. _Everyone_ is talking about it. This is Taeil by the way. Oh, also, I saw your lunchbox in the fridge so I've got it here for you.”

Yuta laughs at his rambling, he likes that guy a lot.

He has texts from other co-workers, most of them expressing similar levels of awe as in Taeil’s message, but the more of them he scrolls through the more uneasy they make him feel. It’s freeing, he thinks, to leave something you detest, but it’s also _terrifying._

The next morning, Yuta wakes up a little after six thirty, the same time he usually wakes up to get ready for work. Except he isn’t going to work, he remembers, and he could technically sleep in until nine every day for the rest of his life, being unemployed and all. Then again, he can’t technically afford to _stay_ unemployed for very long, not if he doesn’t want to end up behind on his bills. He doesn’t want that, he's never wanted that. That's how he ended up taking the first job he was offered after college. 

Yuta's awake now - wide awake before seven, so he opts to go for a walk- he has no idea what’s around the hotel, but just being outside usually makes Yuta feel good. That’s why his friends were so surprised when he graduated into a job that kept him chained to a desk for ten hours a day. Taeil had called it, “the biggest shock of the twenty first century,” and at the time Yuta had laughed, but maybe, he thinks, it wasn’t funny at all. Maybe Taeil was right. _Maybe_ life was leading upto Yuta quitting in a blaze of slightly crazy glory all along. 

He doesn’t want to sit at a desk and punch numbers for a man with no morals, not anymore. Of that (though maybe only that) he is certain.

When they check out of the hotel, the girl at the desk eyeing them like she’s trying to figure out how they know each other, what they’re doing in town and why they didn’t share a room, Yuta carefully pockets some of the free wrapped boiled candy at the front-desk. The girl notices, but she just smiles and looks down at her computer. 

When they get out to the car, Yuta puts the candy into the cup-holder between their seats. “To the ocean?” 

“Definitely.” Sicheng nods, and Yuta pulls away, gears sticking as he changes from one to two.

There is a quiet sort of calm in the car - the radio plays on low volume, crackling out of signal every so often. Sicheng loads up a map on his phone and directs Yuta every so often when the road-signs aren’t clear. It’s easy, but it’s not _comfortable_ , not yet, when neither of them really know what they’re doing, where they’re going. Most trips have an end in sight, but all that Yuta knows is where their next stop is, and even then “the ocean” is a pretty vague destination.

Sicheng drums his fingers against his knee as they drive along a long stretch of highway. “When do you have to go back?”

He looks at Yuta and Yuta glances back at him. “I don’t know. I mean, I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose my plants will need watering at some point, and I pop in on my neighbour once a week to help her with her mail. She’s, like, ninety. What about you?”

Sicheng says, “I don’t have any plants and my neighbours can sort their own mail.”

“No, I meant–”

“I know.” Sicheng’s hands are clasped in his lap now. “I don’t know if I want to go back at all.”

“Right, but you’re on Summer break from college now, aren’t you? So you’ll have to be back for the next semester.”

“ _If_ I go back next semester.” Sicheng looks out of the window. Yuta sneaks glances at him, waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. Yuta turns up the radio and hums along as he drives, but he still sneaks glances at his passenger. The more that Yuta looks, the less he finds that he wants to look away. 

Finally Sicheng says, “Actually, we should probably be back in town by Saturday afternoon.”

“Saturday.” Yuta counts in his head. It’s Wednesday now, so that’s three days away, which is no time at all, really, but it’s probably for the best. He laughs softly. “That’s the thing about life, isn’t it? As much as we want to, it’s difficult to just– just up and run away from it. We're tethered to certain things, people, places.”

Sicheng murmurs in agreement. Adds, “We’ve managed to get away, though.”

“For a _day_.” Yuta laughs. “Hey, open the windows so we can smell the salt air when we reach the coast.”

They drive with the windows rolled down and the radio turned up, and as the sun meets the centre of the sky, Yuta knows for certain that, even if he does go back to town, he can’t go back to those stifling days in the office. 

“Do you think dog-walking could be a lucrative career?” Yuta asks Sicheng, whose hair whips around his face. “Or maybe landscaping. I love gardens. I could landscape rich people’s gardens!” 

Sicheng pushes his hair from his eyes, but it only gets messier. Still, he’s stupidly, unbelievably, handsome, so he still looks good as he pulls a confused face and says, “I thought you were an office worker?”

“I was.” Yuta smiles, dragging his eyes back to the road ahead. “But I’m not anymore.”

They reach the coast not long after midday. The smell of fresh water in the air fills Yuta with a longing he hadn’t realised he’d been holding onto. He says, “This reminds me of vacations with my grandparents.” 

“When you were a child?” Sicheng takes off his shoes and rolls the cuffs of his pants up to mid-calf, sinking his feet into the sand.

“Yeah. I remember one summer when I was about eight, I practically lived at the beach. I’d be up at dawn and out there until sunset building sandcastles and playing in the water. I almost drowned that summer, but even that is a fond memory. Is that weird?”

“My stepdad would probably love it if I drowned.” Yuta isn't sure if he's joking. He squints against the sun.

“I take it you don’t get along?" 

“Hmm, you could say that.” Sicheng stares out towards the water. “I’m going to walk further up the beach. Are you coming?” 

Yuta can’t tell whether Sicheng is asking him out of politeness, or whether it’s a real invitation. He plays it safe and goes with the former; he doesn't want to impose. “I think I’ll sit here awhile. I’ll look after your shoes for you.” He sits down on the sand and puts his hand out to take Sicheng’s sneakers off him. 

“Suit yourself.” Sicheng hands them over, pausing before he lets them go. “You won’t– you won’t just leave, will you?” 

“Here.” He hands Sicheng his car-keys. “I'm not going to leave, but if it makes you feel better you can take these, so you know I can't…”

Sicheng says, “I believe you won’t leave,” but he still hesitates a little and then takes the keys after all.

Yuta is imagining himself with a labrador at his feet as he stands in front of a perfectly landscaped rockery pool and making notes on his phone about his daydreams, when the sun is suddenly blocked and a figure looms into view, standing over him. 

“What are you doing?” Sicheng asks. He’s rolled the sleeves of his t-shirt up to the top of his arms and paired with his bare ankles and tanned skin, he looks like the epitome of Summer. He sits down next to Yuta, and the sun bathes them both in warmth again.

“Just contemplating things.” Yuta puts his phone back into his pocket and pushes his toes into the sand. “Like what to do when we get back home.”

Sicheng closes his eyes against the sun and tips back his face. “Let’s not think about that just yet.”

“We kind of have to,” Yuta says. 

“Maybe.” Sicheng opens one eye and looks at him. He looks so much more relaxed than he did when he stalked off across the sand an hour ago. “Maybe in a couple of days. But now we’re on vacation, right?”

Yuta nods. He hadn’t thought of it like that; this roadtrip had felt like running away, not _getting_ away, at first. It had felt aimless. Now it feels like just what he might need to get his head together before he gets back to real life. 

“Close your eyes like this and pretend the rest of the world has disappeared,” Sicheng tells him, eyes closed again. His skin is honey-suckle gold in this light and his eyelashes are long, dark against his cheeks. “I recommend it.”

“Okay.” Yuta closes his eyes, leans back on his hands, which slide through the soft sand until they’re buried to his wrists. It feels nice; relaxing.

Sicheng waits a beat. “Are you doing it yet?”

“I am.”

They sit in a quiet comfort, shoulder to shoulder, until the breeze gets stronger, the sun dancing behind clouds and back out in front of them again. “What’s happening on Saturday?” Yuta breaks the silence to ask Sicheng. “You said you needed to be back by Saturday, why is that?”

Sicheng says, “A thing. Hey, let’s drive further along the coast, there should be some pretty amazing views North of here according to this website I've checked,” and stands up. He brushes sand from his pants. “I’ll drive if you want. I guess it’s my turn.”

Yuta contemplates this. “I thought that I drove and that you bought the gas.”

“I didn't ask you on this trip as my chauffeur _,_ and this isn't a heist movie with a getaway driver.” Sicheng rolls his eyes. “This is a _road trip_ and it’s my turn to drive, come on.”

This might not be a heist movie, but Sicheng drives like he’s being filmed: one hand on the wheel and the other on the clutch, relaxed, smooth, cinematic. It’s kind of hot, the way he adjusts the mirrors when he slides into the driver’s seat; tilts them a little since he’s taller. Yuta says, “the gear’s get stuck sometimes,” but Sicheng changes them easily with a casual shrug, and it makes Yuta stare in awe every time they move on from traffic lights or stop-signs. 

“Why are you staring? Am I doing something badly?” Sicheng glances at Yuta nervously. "I usually drive an automatic."

Yuta laughs. "Your driving is fine," he says. “I was wondering, did you never try out for the soccer team when we were at school?”

“Me? No." Sicheng's eyebrows furrow up and Yuta wonders if he’s said something wrong. "Why?”

Yuta shrugs. “I just think you should have tried out, that's all.”

“I can’t play, what made you think I can?" He says, "And I don’t play soccer as a general rule.”

“Oh, that’s not why I said it.” Yuta is enjoying playing passenger. He stretches his legs out in front of him and slouches in his seat to get comfortable. Sicheng takes his hand off the gearstick to switch radio stations as static fills the car. “I just think you’d suit the kit."

Yuta smiles. It's not like he's always been a thighs guy (though he has), it's more that he thinks Sicheng would probably look really good in a full kit - he's tall and he has great proportions. Maybe he could have been goalkeeper if he'd played in high-school, Yuta thinks. If he could play.

“So… You don’t think I’d actually be good at soccer, you just think that I’d look good in soccer shorts?” Sicheng looks intrigued by this.

“I didn't say that." Yuta puts his feet up on the dashboard. Sicheng throws him a look, but then seems to remember that it's Yuta's car so he can pretty much do what he wants. “Being the passenger is making me sleepy.”

Sicheng shrugs. “Then sleep.”

Yuta shakes his head. “I’m fine. I’m excited for these views across the bay that you’ve promised me.” He yawns.

“I don’t mind.” Sicheng catches him trying to suppress the yawn and smiles at him. “Sleep. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

Sicheng wakes him with a gentle shake of the arm and Yuta blinks against the sunlight, hopes he hasn't been doing anything weird in his sleep. The views, it turns out, _are_ beautiful up here, and they sit on the hood of the car for a while and watch the ocean hit the shore, the rhythmic motion of the waves hypnotising, and calming too. Yuta knows for sure he needs to do something drastic now- change career completely and do something outdoors. He tells Sicheng this with an air of pride. "Think I can do it?" 

"Of course you can," Sicheng tells him, and his faith in him makes Yuta feel warm inside. 

The sign outside the motel had flashed _Rooms Available_ but as it turned out, that was not quite accurate. “They only have one room left,” Sicheng tells him as he returns from the front desk. 

And, yeah, it’s a little frustrating since they’ve already parked up and lugged their bags into the lobby, but they shouldn’t have to drive too much further to find another place to stay; the whole road up the coast is littered with motels and guest houses like this one. “Nevermind,” Yuta says. “I’m sure we’ll find-”

Sicheng holds up a room key. “So we’re in room two nineteen.”

“Oh.” Yuta clears his throat, tries to hide the surprise in his voice, though it’s probably written all over his face. “Okay. Cool.”

“Is that…” Sicheng pauses. “Did you want to go somewhere else?”

Yuta thinks about this. “Is it... Are there two beds?” 

It’s not that he’s never shared a bed with a friend before, but that’s entirely the point— Yuta still can’t quite tell what Sicheng thinks of him, if anything, and this isn’t sharing a room with Taeil at a work conference and spending half of the night in stitches, laughing over the awful seminar they’ve had to attend that day, and it isn’t the holiday he took with Taeyong back when they were dating in college. This is a handsome half-stranger who Yuta finds manages to blindside him as soon as he just about starts to feel like he knows what’s going on. 

Sicheng just looks at him as if he’s losing some of his patience. “I have no idea. I’ll sleep in the car if you’d prefer to be alone, since I have the younger, more flexible back.” 

Yuta knows this is a joke, but he can’t help wonder if there’s anything else in it too. Is he flirting? Is he bragging? Yuta can’t quite tell. 

Yuta picks up their bags and tries not to look too phased. “It's fine. Which floor are we staying on?”

The room has a double bed, because _of course_ it does. Sicheng doesn’t seem to bat a single eyelid at this fact; he just throws his duffel bag down and says, “I’m so hungry. Should we get some room service?”

Yuta pauses. “Isn’t room service usually stupid expensive?” He frets about where to put his own bag and settles for putting it down beside the wardrobe.

“I’ll pay.” Sicheng is already looking at the menu; a laminated card with minimal choices on it. He frowns as he reads through the options.

“I wasn’t hinting at that," Yuta hurries to say. "You don't have to keep paying for things."

Sicheng looks up briefly and then resumes staring at the page. He's reading the menu - which appears to be made up of less than ten items - with such intent that it's almost cute. “I know you weren’t," he says. "But you just quit your job and my credit card is good to go, we’ve discussed this already.”

They order small plates of lukewarm food: pizza with congealed cheese that's clearly been microwaved, cardboard fries, pasta with undistinguishable red sauce that might be meant to represent tomatoes, plus two large sodas which are flat, the cup filled mainly with ice.

Yuta bites into a pizza slice, plastic cheese and all. The food is so salty it makes him wince. "Maybe we should have got beer, maybe it would make this food taste more edible."

"No, beer wouldn't work." Sicheng shakes his head. "We'd need magic for that."

Yuta laughs. It's weird, he thinks, that after passing someone in the hallways of school for years without a thought for them, their well-being can start to feel important to you within less than forty-eight hours of meeting again. "Is it helping so far? The trip? Is it what you needed?" He asks. 

"I don't know... I just–– I just needed to get away for a while and hit the reset button," Sicheng explains carefully, as though he's choosing each word with caution. "What about you? Do you regret coming yet?"

"Of course I don't." Yuta clears up the half-finished plates. "It's given me time to think about what to do next without rushing into anything."

"I have an idea about what to do next." A hint of a smile starts to creep over Sicheng's face.

"Yeah?"

"We should order those beers." Sicheng picks up the telephone and presses zero for reception. "And you can pay me back for them someday if you really have to."

The beers are warm when they arrive, but they still taste better than the food, which Sicheng refuses to allow Yuta to pay anything towards. They play local radio through the TV and talk about teachers they both remember from high-school and about what their high-school selves might have thought of them now.

"I think he'd be okay with it," Yuta decides, about his eighteen year old past-self. "He'd really like the way I quit my job, he'd probably think that was cool."

"From the way you describe it, the way you quit _was_ cool," Sicheng says. He taps his beer bottle against his knee and looks down, pensive. "I guess... I think high-school me would be a bit disappointed if he saw me now."

"Why?"

"He just would." Sicheng looks up and then he moves up the bed and sits against the headboard. "Let's do that thing where we close our eyes and forget the world again,” he says and waits for Yuta to move to sit next to him.

Yuta does it, because it _had_ been nice earlier, and there’s something about this trip that is so off-kilter and dreamlike that it doesn’t feel like a weird thing to do.

“Do you ever get scared you’ll never feel like you’re on top of things? That you’ll always be catching up to what you want to achieve?” Yuta whispers after a while. His eyes are still closed. He hopes Sicheng's are closed too. He feels a little vulnerable right now - in a strange room, on a strange bed, with his eyes closed and the radio playing old 90s songs in the background. But he feels like he can speak this worry out loud; like a Sicheng will understand what he means. It’s nice, in a way, to feel connected to someone like this.

"I'm not even sure what I want to achieve," Sicheng admits. "But to start with, I'd like to be happy.”

Yuta smiles to himself. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Unrealistic though, no?”

“It doesn’t have to be.” Yuta opens his eyes and catches Sicheng with his open too. He’s more readable now, in the dim light from the TV. He looks tired, frustrated, but he also looks like he genuinely wants to believe what Yuta says. 

“We broke the rules and opened our eyes.” Yuta smiles. 

Sicheng just smiles back. Says, after a while, “When you start your landscaping business… I can help. Use my business management skills for good, not for evil like your old boss.”

“You’ll be too busy with school.”

Sicheng shrugs. "After summer, I might just… Not go back. Or, if I do, I'm going to change something. I just need to figure out what.”

“Would that make you happy?” Yuta asks. Sicheng's eyes are bright in the dimly lit room. He thinks about this for a while, chews at his lip as though it's important to him that he answers truthfully. Yuta always likes that in a person. He likes it now.

“Happiness is really a state of mind, isn’t it?” Sicheng says. "It's not in an action, it's in here." He taps the side of his head.

"Maybe," Yuta says. He puts his hand over his heart, or near it at least. "Or in here."

"In your oesophagus?"

Yuta scoffs. "You know where I mean."

Sicheng laughs, reaches out and shifts Yuta's hand left across his chest a little. "There, that's better," he says. "Much more deep and meaningful."

"I do mean it, though," Yuta calls to Sicheng later, once he's in his sleep shorts with his teeth brushed and he's trying not to be awkward about getting into bed while Sicheng changes in the bathroom. "If you follow your heart in deciding what you want to do when you get back, it'll work out." 

"I hope so." Sicheng emerges from the bathroom with a fresh washed face, tinged pink from the warm water. He's so good-looking that Yuta can barely comprehend how he wasn't completely in love with him in school. All he can blame is his dedication to soccer and threatening to bench any of his team that were dicks to the cheerleaders. It's easy not to notice people before you're introduced, he guesses. Life isn't aways love at first sight. 

“Don’t get any ideas in the night. If I wake up and you’re, like, trying to spoon me I’ll be pissed." Sicheng pulls back the sheets on the opposite side of the bed, and for a moment Yuta worries that he's mad about catching Yuta staring at him. "Because _I’m_ always the big spoon.”

"What?"

"I was saying that I’m always the big–– it was a joke, sorry." He scrunches his nose up. "Actually, I can't remember when I last shared a bed with someone."

“Did you do this on purpose?" Yuta asks him, fakes a concerned look. "Get us one room so you could cuddle?”

Sicheng scoffs. “No. If that’s what I wanted to do I’d just ask you like I _asked_ to sit next to you at the cafe and _asked_ you to come on this trip.”

“You make a valid point.” Yuta thinks about this as he turns off the bedside lamp. In the darkness, Sicheng’s form is just a soft shape a foot away.

"And anyway, you realise that if our bodies touch in the night we are obliged to fuck don’t you?”

Yuta almost chokes on thin air.

"That was also a joke!” Sicheng reaches out in the dark to pat Yuta’s shoulder awkwardly when he doesn't stop coughing. “Do you need some water?”

Yuta calms down enough to say, “No. After that comment I _need_ some sleep,” and laugh in a way that comes out stilted. He’s not felt this self-conscious in front of someone else in a long time, but then usually he knows exactly which cards are on the table, and here, in the dark, in a single hotel room with an old friend who he barely knows, he can’t see the cards clearly at all. 

“Yeah, me too,” Sicheng replies. “Goodnight Yuta”

When he wakes up in the night Sicheng is sleeping still and soundly, still a soft looking shadow at the other side of the bed.

The next day they drive up the coast a little further and eat fresh seafood, perfectly seared and served in the richest, most delicious soup Yuta thinks he’s ever tasted. He could eat this and only this for the rest of his entire life and be happy about it. Sicheng tells Yuta it’s his treat- uses the usual excuse of this whole thing being his idea. 

“Are you sure this isn’t too expensive?” Yuta can’t help but ask it. He winces when he sees Sicheng’s face.

“Stop asking that. Are you enjoying it?”

He nods. “Yes, of course I am. It’s _amazing_.”

“Then does it matter?” Sicheng looks at him as though everything is simple, when really, Yuta thinks, _he_ should know that nothing ever is. He’s admitted that at least over the last couple of days.

Yuta twists his mouth up as he thinks of how to respond. “I’ve never… I don’t like being in debt and– and even though you _say_ you don’t want me to pay you back for any of this stuff, I feel in debt regardless.”

“I kidnapped you. I made you drive out here. I’ve stolen you from your plants and your neighbour and whoever else loves you. You owe me nothing.”

Yuta shrugs. “I feel like I do. I like to be on equal footing in… In friendships and stuff. I’m pretty self-sufficient— I’ve not relied on anyone else for money for a long time and it feels weird when I do.”

Sicheng says nothing about the friendship comment, or about Yuta’s admission that he doesn’t like to rely on others too much. Just says, “If it makes you feel any better, this isn’t technically my money.”

“What?”

“It’s not stolen or anything,” he stresses. “It’s mine in name. This is _my_ credit card. But I didn’t _earn_ it, exactly. My step-dad did.”

Yuta thinks this through. “And you said he’s…”

“He’s a homophobic, self-centred, patronising asshole who was obsessed with me being some hyper-masculine stereotype when I was trying to grow up.” He scowls. 

“A homophobe, you say?” Yuta raises an eyebrow. Sicheng’s frustration at being home for Summer makes more sense now. “That’s even worse than corporate scum.” 

“Well, he’s that as well.” Sicheng stabs at a piece of fish with his fork. “And now, because I let him talk me into it, I’m majoring in business and sometimes when he asks me in front of his friends if I’ve been dating any girls lately - because he knows, he damn well _knows_ I haven’t been - I just say yes to shut him up.”

He looks so angry, though Yuta can’t tell whether it’s with his step father or with himself. It could be a mixture of the two. Yuta says, “Going along with what seems easiest is a normal thing to do. It’s self-preservation, I get it. I worked that job I hated for almost two years just so I wouldn’t have to admit to my parents back home that I wasn’t happy. I _get_ it.”

“Don’t you feel… I don’t know, frustrated with yourself?”

“Yes. But I can work on that.”

Sicheng sighs. “Something’s got to give, that’s pretty clear now.” He smiles, eyes twinkling. “I can't believe I actually got so fed up I skipped town with some guy I went to high school with.” 

The flippant way he describes Yuta should hurt a little, but Yuta can tell that Sicheng doesn’t mean anything bad by it. It’s just the truth— the situation is kind of extreme, but it doesn’t feel that strange now. Yuta laughs too. “And in my shit car too.”

“You have to fix that air conditioning before next Summer,” Sicheng tells him and Yuta wonders if they’ll do this again sometime. He likes the idea; he feels at ease right now, mulling over the realities of his adult life with someone he’d never have imagined would have similar reservations about their direction in the world. 

“What’s happening next Summer that I’d need it fixed for?” Yuta asks, and _yes_ he’s wondering if Sicheng is suggesting they’ll still be in each other’s lives then.

Sicheng doesn’t take the bait. “I don’t know. It’ll be hot.” He shrugs, but then he smiles shyly. “Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?” 

“For listening and for not acting like I’m pathetic for complaining about this stuff. And for coming on this trip.”

“Thank you for asking me to come,” Yuta replies, and he _is_ thankful. This trip has given him time to remember what is important to him and Sicheng’s faith in his potential career is exhilarating and comforting all at once. Sicheng barely knows him, he owes him nothing - Yuta guesses it goes both ways - but he genuinely seems to care about Yuta’s situation, and Yuta finds he cares about Sicheng’s too because he _understands_ what it’s like to feel trapped. He understands feeling torn between doing something you love and doing something that’s expected of you - whether that is taking a job that pays the bills or majoring in something you have no passion for. 

“We’re quite alike, aren’t we?” Yuta says, as they wait for the dessert platter to arrive at their table. “Both looking for something more.”

“We’re nothing alike,” Sicheng says. “I don’t think I’d have the nerve to quit a job like you did.”

“Oh, I think you would.” Yuta likes the way that Sicheng smiles as he says it, like it’s the highest compliment he could receive. “But you’re right, we’re probably not _that_ similar. I don’t have a pool at home…”

Sicheng rolls his eyes and laughs. “You can swim in mine sometime. And yes, that’s me asking you to.”

It sounds like he’s flirting, and Yuta likes it. It means they’re thinking along the same lines about staying in contact after all.

“Cheers to that,” Yuta says, and they raise their glasses of sweet iced tea just in time for dessert to arrive.

Yuta drives again for a few hours, and they turn back inland and start the long drive ahead towards home. They only have one night left before Sicheng needs to be back (although he still hasn’t told Yuta what sort of significance the day holds) and they’ve managed to drive pretty far up the coast in the couple of days they have spent on the road together. 

Sicheng adjusts the passenger seat to how he likes it, pushed back for leg room but with the back quite straight and winds the window down halfway. His hair becomes more and more windswept as Yuta drives and when they catch each other’s eyes in the mirror they laugh together. Yuta feels like he’s broken free from something undefined, like he’s weightless under Sicheng’s gaze. He’s proud of them both, he realises. Even though all they’ve done is drove and talked (and complained, and mulled over) things, it’s left him with a new outlook on what’s ahead of him. 

He admits this, because they’ve stopped keeping thoughts to themselves now. Adds, “Is it weird to say I’m not dreading going home now? That I’m kind of looking forward to picking up the pieces?”

“I feel the same,” Sicheng admits. He looks almost surprised at himself. “You know, I never thought I’d be saying that. But I am glad we still have one more night away.”

“Me too.” Yuta catches his eye again - just briefly, half a second at most - and he marvels at the bloom-of-a-flower smile that takes over Sicheng’s features. 

After sundown, they sit outside a bar in a small town on the way back towards home. The bench they sit on wobbles when they put their beers down and Sicheng steadies both of their drinks, waits for Yuta to reach out and take his again before he retracts his hand. It’s almost deliberate, the way he waits for their fingers to touch before he slips his hand away. 

“What did you think of me back in school? Honestly?” Yuta asks him. He knows he’ll get an honest answer, even if it’s not what he’d most like to hear.

“Honestly?” Sicheng licks at his lips. “Not a lot. I knew your face, but I only knew your name through Jaehyun being on the soccer team. And because all the old sports captains photos were up in the gym-hall with your names underneath as though you were, like, a dynasty of world leaders.” He rolls his eyes, then. “So over the top. Did you even win any trophies?”

Yuta laughs. “One. And I never asked to be displayed there. I just–– I just genuinely enjoyed playing the game. I could have done without being captain. Still, that’s why you should’ve tried out for soccer - I sat in on all of the try outs, so I’d have noticed you. Then we’d have known each other properly.”

“My stepdad wanted me to play soccer.” Sicheng looks down at his glass. “He didn’t want me to spend all my time dancing.”

“You danced? Why haven’t you mentioned that yet?”

Sicheng shrugs. “That was one of the first things he used to complain about after we moved in with him— that I didn’t play sports. I think he was worried I might turn out gay.” He raises an eyebrow. 

“Oh, at least three of us on the team when I was there were into guys,” Yuta says. “So his outdated, stereotyping hypothesis sucks anyway.”

Sicheng laughs. “Right? He tried to persuade me to try out for soccer with Jaehyun every damn year. If only he’d known it wouldn’t have magically made me straight, maybe he’d have given up.”

Yuta laughs. “You didn’t try out, though. You resisted! That’s pretty cool.” 

“Yeah.” He smiles. “I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for that.’

“You don’t need forgiveness for not bowing to other people’s wishes.” Yuta frowns. “It’s something I’m slowly starting to realise myself.”

“I know.” Sicheng finishes his drink and sets it down between them decisively. “Do you want to get one room again tonight?” He asks. He looks Yuta straight in the eyes, like he did when he first asked him to drive far away with him three nights before. 

Yuta is aware of a tiny flutter of nerves that have made their way up his spine. “Even if there are two rooms available?”

“Yeah.” 

“And are we obliged to fuck if we accidentally touch in the night?” Yuta punctuates this line with a smile, so that Sicheng knows he’s joking. 

“Obviously, yes.” Sicheng tries not to laugh. “That _is_ the rule.”

They leave the bar not long after this. They check on the car, which they’ve parked a couple of blocks away, and then they walk through unfamiliar streets, following the map on Sicheng’s phone to the nearest hotel. Yuta carries their bags while Sicheng navigates, and it’s kind of like being in the car again. 

“Except it’s cooler,” Sicheng quips. “You know, since we don’t need air-conditioning out here.”

Yuta tries to flip him off, but he can’t get his fingers free from the strap of Sicheng’s bag in time, so he settles for just sticking out his tongue. “I can’t afford air conditioning in my car now, I’ve not got a job!”

“It’ll all work out for you.” Sicheng takes his bag from Yuta as they cross the street to the hotel. “And you don’t need to fix your aircon at all, not really, because once my car is out of the shop _I’m_ driving everywhere for the rest of Summer.” 

The hotel room is basic: wallpaper greying, curtains frayed. But the bathroom is clean and bright, and the room smells of fresh laundry, so that’s all that really matters. Yuta has never had pretensions about where he lays his head– a bed is a bed, and he’s grateful just to have that sometimes. Sicheng laughs to himself as he looks out of the window. Says, “There’s a dance academy across the street.” 

“Do you think it’s a sign?” Yuta asks. "That you should take it up again?" 

“No, but it’s still nice to see.”

“Are you any clearer, do you think? About what you’re going to do about your major?”

“Not really,” Sicheng says. He looks back from the window.

“Oh.”

“But that’s okay. I'm going to figure it out, and I feel good about what’s to come now. You’re a good sounding board,” he says. “I like being around you.”

His phone rings, then, and he takes the call with a frown. “I’ll just be a minute,” he mouths as he slips out of the hotel room door and into the corridor. But after a minute, then two, then five, he doesn’t return. Yuta can hear him outside, footsteps up and down the hallway, but he doesn’t want to pry, so he leaves Sicheng be, unpacks clean underwear, sleep shorts and a fresh t-shirt from his bag and heads into the bathroom. 

He showers with a sense of apprehension; it’s not unlike the feeling he had as he marched down the corridor and towards his manager’s office a few days before, except this time his heart is racing with excitement and not with injustice over what he’s just found out about the company’s accounts (and whose pocket all of the low-salaried worker’s bonuses were actually filling). They’d been joking, before, at the bar, but in that flirtatious sort of way that suggests there is a truth behind the words. 

When Yuta leaves the bathroom, Sicheng is back in the room, lying on his stomach across the bed. He looks up from his phone and smiles, that slow opening flower of a grin that makes Yuta feel heady. “Hey.”

“Is everything okay?” Yuta busies himself with combing his hair with his fingers to distract himself from the fact he is becoming more and more certain that Sicheng wants to have sex with him. 

He nods, pushes himself up into a sitting position. The veins on his forearms swell as he pushes himself up. “That was my sister calling. She’s... Well, she was worried, but it’s fine now. I explained where I was.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I’d gone away to clear my head and that I'd taken someone responsible with me.”

Yuta laughs. “I _am_ quite a responsible person,” he says. “My plants thrive, at least.” 

“And I said we’ll be back tomorrow, so I can still go to the baby shower– not hers. My mom’s and _his_.” He looks at Yuta, then looks away. “I’m going to be a brother again. It’s a boy and _he’s_ going to get to raise him just how he wants to now that he didn't manage to mould me into what he wanted.”

Yuta understands now, more about why Sicheng's been dwelling on it– the past, his present. “But you’re going to be his brother and that’s important. You can teach him strength. You can teach him to be who he wants to be.” Yuta doesn’t know what to do, so he settles on just staying there, stood at the edge of the bed. Sicheng has made it clear that he’ll ask for what he wants from him and he doesn’t want to overstep his boundaries; as close as he’s starting to feel to Sicheng, there is still a lot to learn.

Sicheng smiles up at him. Fond eyes, tinged with sadness. “I don’t want him to be here in twenty years. Lost and angry and having to run away from that house just to _think_.”

“I don’t know, I think worse things could happen. He could end up so dissatisfied with corporate lies that he quits his job and tries to steal a plastic potted plant from his manager’s office.” Yuta pulls a face. "I really thought it was a real plant."

Sicheng laughs and gets up off the bed. “I’m gonna go and brush my teeth. Maybe you don’t need that T-shirt on.”

“Maybe?”

Sicheng huffs out a breath, but his lips are curled upwards. He’s clearly amused that Yuta’s holding him to his word about asking for things. “Are you going to take your clothes off while I’m in the bathroom or not?”

“I am.”

“Good.”

The bathroom door closes with a click, and when Sicheng appears again, hair wet around his forehead, the adrenaline surges through Yuta's body in nervous waves until they're kissing, and then he forgets everything but the moment they're in.

The next morning, Yuta wakes up to an arm over his chest and an amused realisation that Sicheng really _does_ demand to be big spoon when he cuddles. They check-out of the hotel, drink watered down coffee in a roadside diner and plan the best route back home. “What time is your family event?”

“It starts at five.” Sicheng yawns. He doesn't even cover it with his hand. “So we have just over six hours to get back.”

“I think we can manage that.” Yuta actually has no idea if they can, but he's not going to rain on Sicheng's parade, and, anyway, his little car has proved herself to be very worthy of his everlasting faith over the last few days, even if she's not got any of the amenities modern cars are being made with now. Sometimes, he thinks, it's best to get back to basics.

Like now, as he catches Sicheng watching his face in the rearview mirror and winks at him. Sicheng looks away pointedly. Says, "Eyes on the road, Yuta," but continues to sneak glances at him as they drive.

"Did you think this would happen when the trip began?" Yuta asks him after they stop for gas and to stretch their legs for three minutes (they have a tight schedule after all).

"This?"

Yuta says, "You know, last night..."

"I might have entertained the thought briefly." Sicheng thinks. "And then... Then I got to know you and I guess I thought about it more, especially in bed that second night."

Yuta laughs. "I was really scared I'd accidentally roll over and you'd think I was trying it on with you."

"You did at one point, when you were asleep." Sicheng blushes. "And I was kind of hoping you were awake. But you were snoring."

That makes Yuta laugh even more, mainly at the outrage of being accused of snoring and also at the fact that Sicheng still wanted to fuck him after hearing it.

"Do you have a spare bedroom in your apartment?" Sicheng asks as they join the highway leading directly back into the city.

Yuta wonders if he misheard. "What?"

"To set up a little home office," Sicheng explains. "To plan your business-venture."

"Oh! Uh, no. But I can sort something out in the corner of my living room. Under the window, maybe." He likes that idea. "Do you want to come over and be my sounding board next week?"

"I do." Sicheng taps his lips, as if worrying. He doesn't look worried. "But the problem is, we might get a bit distracted."

Yuta knows where this is going now, is starting to understand the way Sicheng thinks, just a little. "Because if we touch, we have to have sex again?"

"Exactly."

They laugh, the wind drowning out their giggles as they drive along the highway. The car is too warm and the radio volume gets stuck a little over half-way back, but they make it back into the city before five, Sicheng directing Yuta to his house on the North side of the city, fifteen minutes or so outside of the centre.

"So, this is where all the houses with the pools are." Yuta grins as they drive through imposing streets, Sicheng refusing to engage with the comment, pushing his arm and scoffing as Yuta laughs.

When they pull up outside the house, Sicheng says, "Let's close our eyes just for a minute before I have to go in."

Yuta obliges. Says, after a moment, "Are we pretending the world has disappeared?"

"Not anymore." Sicheng says. His voice is quiet, but it sounds nearer than before. "Now I just think it's funny to see you concentrating so hard."

When Yuta opens his eyes, Sicheng kisses him, his warm lips still salty from memories of sea air. "Thanks for the ride." He smiles, a deep red rose in full blossom. "I'll see you next week."

As Yuta drives home, his t-shirt sticking to his back in the Summer heat, he thinks about it all: his present, his future and where he might end up, and he's _excited_.

Sicheng texts him later that night: _I've had an idea about switching to a double major next semester! I'll tell you about it next time I see you!_ and -after watering his plants carefully and checking on his neighbour, who greets him with the warmest of smiles- Yuta sleeps more soundly than he has in a long, long time.

When he wakes up the next morning, his Hello Kitty lunchbox is outside his front door with a note from Taeil, and Yuta brings it inside and decides he'll keep it out, on a shelf maybe, a symbol of whatever's to come. 


End file.
